No Radio With Rear Defrost On

2003 325 xi sedan. The past few mornings ive noticed that when i turn on my rear defrost i am recieveing no radio signal. I turn off the rear defrost and the signal comes right back. I know the antenna is in the rear window grid. I do not have tinted windows nor does it look as if the car had tinted windows. I think i had a slight signal a month ago when i used it one morning about a month ago but since then i havnt needed to use it. I have the busness class cd player. Need an idea as to where to start looking.

I have this same problem. I'm curious to find out what the cause is.

I had a simmilar problem and it was caused by my radio region being set to europe...

How would i go about fixing that i get all my local stations as i normaly would.

I have that same problem. If i turn on the rear defrost or the front window defroster i get static in the radio. As soon as i turn it off the radio comes in nicely. This is not cool if you have a chick in the car.

2001 BMW 330XI aka Black Beauty

Don't feel bad, my '01 330xi has bad reception all the time regardless of the defroster being on or not. It does however have old tint on the rear window. I'm hesitant to remove it for messing up the defroster elements on the glass. I did replace the antenna amp and that made a bit of a difference. Still very frustrating that I can't consistantly listen to local stations.

same problem here

Hello fellow xi'ers

For you OP.

http://blog.bavauto.com/10056/bmw-po...-other-models/

Here's my xi:

Revisa69, have you done the same for your vehicle? Notice a big difference? I have seen that before, I just haven't had the time to follow through with it yet. Think any ordinary contact cleaner will do the trick?

My AM tuner only picks up really odd numbered stations like 943 or 1379. Not that worried about it....

^look for Delmarcos guide to getting into the stereo setup menus, that's what mine did exactly and it was because mine was set to Europe.

I'm not using a stock radio, I would say my reception is 7/10. However it's better than the stocker was. Clean the the contacts on the antenna connectors helps in most cases. Also a common problem is that the connector to antenna amp on the driver's rear pillar tends to loosen up over time.

I have the same problem on my 2001 325i sedan. Yesterday I disconnected all the wires from the rear window and antenna amplifier. I sprayed them all with electrical contact cleaner and put a bit dialectric grease on the connections and put it all back together. I also did the same to the filter on the passenger side C pillar as the Bavauto Blog post mentions. Didn't make a difference for me on AM. Also, some were mentioning before how to check the region on the stereo and here is a simple Youtube video on that:

I've done the fix in post 8 to several cars with good results. Mostly AM radio problems and it works and cost almost nothing. Give it a try.

Are the amp & connectors located in the same "C" piller for a 325iXt (wagon)?

Unless you have a "shark fin" radio antenna, the radio antenna is a wire in the rear glass living there along with the rear glass defogger. When you turn the rear window defogger on, the current going thru its wires to clear the glass of frost interferes with the antenna wire getting radio station signals, sometimes just reducing the "volume" and other times cutting the radio out altogether. This was a problem, is normal and the reason that in later year E46s and new ones, they have a "shark fin" antenna on the roof. Its the same as in the old days when General Motors had the radio antennas in the windshield.

This a specific BMW problem. I had the same radio (Eclipse AVN6600) in an '01 Audi A4 witha rear glass antenna and the raido was crystal clear all the time. Even with the defroster. I have managed to reuce the interference somewhat.

It is possible to correct part of this problem by "trimming" the radio head, this matches the antenna to the radio receiver. in my '03 325xi, the radio volume decreases when the rear window defogger/defroster is on, however, in my '03 330xi, there is no change. That said, putting the radio antenna in the rear window was a cost cutting idea that didn't work too well and that's why the "shark fin" roof top radio antennas on most makes of cars. They never figured that the current running thru the wires for the rear defogger/defroster would interfere with the radio wave signals to the antenna wire (the antenna wire is the outer most wire in the rear window).

I have the same problem. I tried the spray and it did't work. Well kind of. The radio works great now, but the defroster doesn't work at all. I plan on trying to make a new connection for the furthest forward pasanger side wire. I bet this will at least get the rear window defroster working again

I remember a thread similar to this a year or two ago... Curious if they found the source of the problem. Perhaps try a forum search to see if you can find it?